NYC Rents Rising Twice As Fast As Wages, Except for Wealthiest, Study Finds
Compounding the city’s affordability crisis: rents in the city rose twice as fast as wages, according to the analysis, which compared the StreetEasy Rent Index with wage data from the city’s Department of Labor. While median rents increased 3.9 percent a year since 2010, wages increased by 1.8 percent over the same period. Those working in the city’s lowest wage jobs were hit hardest. Low-wage earners — those in the bottom 20 percent of the workforce, which represent a little
Vacant storefronts and shuttered venues plague the once-iconic Bleecker Street
It’s bleak on Bleecker St. for commercial stores. There’s an 18.4% vacancy rate along stretches of the well-known West Village street — once famous for its beatnik shops and music venues like the Village Gate and the Bitter End, places where Bob Dylan once played. “Bleaker on Bleecker: A Snapshot of High-Rent Blight,” used on-the-ground data collection and firsthand accounts to look into the root causes and impacts of storefront vacancies and recommends a number of solutions.
